Page 102 of Not Today, Satan
“No,” I say after a peal of thunder rattles the window. “I won’t do it. I’m sorry, Attero, I can’t come home. If the sinners escape because Father’s gone and Ferus is a total dick, so be it. You can go now.”
Spinning on my heel, I stomp down the hall to my room. I slam the door behind me, so hard that it rattles the windows more than the thunder. I sprawl across the bed and bury my face in my pillow and scream.
This isn’t fair. I’d finally settled into this strange place, and it’s felt more like home than the cold stone of Dominus. Of course Father has to find a way to ruin it.
Nate opens the door and sits beside me, brushing his hand across my back. “You okay?”
I roll over and wipe my face with the back of my hand. “Do you think I should go?”
“Of course not.” He pulls my hand to his chest. “I love you. I want you here more than anything in this universe. But I also know you. You’re the girl who saved a boy she barely knew from an eternity of torture. The one who rescued a murderer from burning rubble, even though you knew it would mean losing me. I don’t want to live without you, but I also can’t imagine you living with the knowledge that more innocent people will be condemned to eternal suffering because you didn’t try to help them.”
“He’s right, honey,” Mom says from the doorway. “This isn’t about us wanting you to go. It’s more about us not wanting you to spend the rest of your life regretting your choice to stay.”
Covering my face with my hands, I roll away from them. How dare they use me against me. They know how hard I’ve battled the pieces of Father buried inside me, and now they’re asking me to accept them and take his place.
They’re suffocating me. This room is suffocating me.
I bolt up, my body heating as their words sink through my skin. My palms spark, and I fist my hands at my sides to stop the flames.
“I have to get out of here.” I push past Nate as he grabs for my wrist and misses. “I need to go for a walk.”
“It’s pouring,” Nate says.
“I don’t care.”
Mom’s already got the coat closet in the hall open, and she shoves a yellow jacket at me. “At least take this. And my umbrella.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Nate asks as I shrug on the raincoat and shove my feet into my boots.
“I need to be alone and think. Be back soon.” I don’t wait for a reply before opening the door, flicking open the umbrella, and heading into the storm.
The streets are nearly deserted, and I walk until water soaks through my boots and my feet ache.
Attero’s pleas ring through my ears.
They’re opposed by my own voice, reminding me of how hard I fought to find what I have with Mom and Nate. The warmth as we sit together and do something as mundane as watching TV. The excitement of Nate’s touch. The way every part of my body responds to his kiss. The thud of his heart against my ear as we cuddle on the beach. I’ve earned these things. How dare anyone try to take them away.
I’m in an area I’ve never navigated before. The houses here are a different style from Mom’s, and the neighborhood is somehow quieter, even in the storm. The sidewalk grows darker, and I look up to find that the streetlights are out. The lights in the homes are out as well, as they’re illuminated by flickering candles and the odd glare of a flashlight.
I turn to head home, as unclear about what to do as when I left, when a familiar shape on the thatch of a building catches my gaze. I’ve seen it enough to know what it represents.
Flickering orange light glimmers behind one of the windows, indicating someone’s inside.
I study it for a moment, then take a breath and step off the curb, toward the last place I expected to seek guidance.
XLIX.
I’ve never been inside a church. Mom’s asked me to come with her some weekends, but I’ve politely declined each time, citing the certainty that I’d burst into flames or something as I crossed the threshold.
When I don’t become an instant inferno after stepping through the doors, I release a long breath and study my surroundings.
The building is coated in shadows, the only light originating from votive candles burning along the circumference of the room. They shimmer off the stained-glass windows and statues.
Twenty or so rows of wooden pews lead toward the altar, which is unlit. The scent of candle wax mingles with incense and the lemon polish used to clean the pews.
Water trickles down my jacket and dots the red carpet as I amble toward the front, my gaze resting on a painting nestled in the domed nook to the left of the altar.
In it, an angel swathed in a blue-and-gold gown carries a bouquet of white lilies. He stares at the viewer, like he knows a secret. What draws me to him, however, are the white wings sprouting from his back. They’re nothing like mine—another reminder that I don’t belong with him, either.
